Environmental Defense Fund hosted the Barbra Streisand Chair of Environmental Studies, the perch of scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who advocates buying up development rights in the Third World as a solution to global climate change.

Oppenheimer also proudly served as an advisor to former Vice President Al Gore on his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” and he has consistently defended the accuracy’s of Gore’s film. “On balance, he did quite well — a credible and entertaining job on a difficult subject,” Oppenheimer said of Gore’s film in 2007. “For that, he (Gore) deserves a lot of credit,” Oppenheimer added.